Beyond serving as a transmission medium for voice and data communications, optical fibers are often used for applications involving sensing, measuring, and various types of instrumentations. At times, the specific properties of a conventional transmission optical fiber are not appropriate for these specialized applications. For example, measurement systems may require high speed operation while using a high intensity optical source. Receiver components for these systems may further require that the received optical signal exhibit a relatively low noise level in order recover the desired signal. In situations where the instruments are operated over a relatively wide bandwidth, it becomes even more difficult to meet the requirements of low noise, high intensity and high speed operation.